TR.
Escalante-Class Member
12-16 up north. Water temp 81.5-83.5, clarity Great until two mile. First few days clarity was off a little up lake from four mile but there must have been some good rain somewhere and by Monday the water was off down to two mile. We had temps in the mid 90’s most days, never going over a hundred. Wind was completely reasonable and despite being almost constant and making some surface disturbance the stripers continue to come up. First two days slurps were random and somewhat short lived, still fishing was good. Slurps really picked up by Sunday, and were full blown boils by then, from Red to the Horn. Poppers were awesome, I don’t think the color mattered. Rebel jumping minnow with two hooks instead of three didn’t work that well, sometimes I had to reel in for more than three seconds before I stuck a fish 
interesting behavior from the stripers, they would just pound the rocks, actually running into the them hard in schools chasing shad. No shy fish, almost never put a school down, and they would boil in 360s around the boat at point blank range. Saw a number of shad that were swimming in the surface upside down....big ones. Just swimming in circles and splashing around, looking like they were sick. A few dead ones floating as well. fished for smallies one day and did OK, not great. Did pull in a number of them over two pounds but the usual every third cast for the small ones was not happening. Ran into a handful of walleyes that were healthy. Stripers over all were looking good. Monday morning we had a school of shad in the middle of the channel use our boat for cover. Stripers were hitting our boat trying to get to them, no kidding. It was like being in Baja for a while, hated to leave. Overall we caught a lot of fish. With two guys fly fishing on the boat I jumped in with a spinning rod and swam out a ways and caught one from the water which was pretty comical. Unfortunately work always seems to get in the way and we had to leave. Inspection folks were thorough and awesomely. Catchnabuzz, Doug, good to meet you and your group, great fishing with you.
interesting behavior from the stripers, they would just pound the rocks, actually running into the them hard in schools chasing shad. No shy fish, almost never put a school down, and they would boil in 360s around the boat at point blank range. Saw a number of shad that were swimming in the surface upside down....big ones. Just swimming in circles and splashing around, looking like they were sick. A few dead ones floating as well. fished for smallies one day and did OK, not great. Did pull in a number of them over two pounds but the usual every third cast for the small ones was not happening. Ran into a handful of walleyes that were healthy. Stripers over all were looking good. Monday morning we had a school of shad in the middle of the channel use our boat for cover. Stripers were hitting our boat trying to get to them, no kidding. It was like being in Baja for a while, hated to leave. Overall we caught a lot of fish. With two guys fly fishing on the boat I jumped in with a spinning rod and swam out a ways and caught one from the water which was pretty comical. Unfortunately work always seems to get in the way and we had to leave. Inspection folks were thorough and awesomely. Catchnabuzz, Doug, good to meet you and your group, great fishing with you.
be there tomorrow!
